1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for administration of drugs. More particularly, the present invention relates to using controlled heat and other physical means to improve dermal, mucosal, and injection administration of drugs.
2. State of the Art
The dermal administration of pharmaceutically active compounds involves the direct application of a pharmaceutically active formulation(s) to the skin, wherein the skin absorbs a portion of the pharmaceutically active compound which is then taken up by the blood stream. Such administration has long been known in the practice of medicine and continues to be an important technique in the delivery of pharmaceutically active compounds. For example, U.S. Pat. 4,286,592 issued Sep. 1, 1981 to Chandrasekaran shows a bandage for administering drugs to a user's skin consisting of an impermeable backing layer, a drug reservoir layer composed of a drug and a carrier, and a contact adhesive layer by which the bandage is affixed to the skin.
Such dermal administration offers many important advantages over other delivery techniques, such as injection, oral tablets and capsules. These advantages include being noninvasive (thus, less risk of infection), avoiding first pass metabolism (metabolism of the drug in the liver when the drug is taken orally and absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract), and avoiding of high peaks and low valleys of concentration of pharmaceutically active compounds in a patient's bloodstream. In particular, high peaks and low valleys of concentration are typical in injection and oral administrations and are often associated with undesirable side effects and/or less than satisfactory intended effects.
The term "dermal drug delivery system" or "DDDS", as used herein, is defined as an article or apparatus containing pharmaceutically active compound(s) for delivery into the skin, the regional tissues under the skin, the systemic circulation, or other targeting site(s) in a human body via skin permeation. The term "DDDS" in this application, unless otherwise specified, only refer to those systems in which the main driving force for drug permeation is the drug concentration gradient.
The term "skin", as used herein, is defined to include stratum corneum covered skin and mucosal membranes.
The term "drug", as used herein, is defined to include any pharmaceutically active compound including but not limited to compounds that treat diseases, injuries, undesirable symptoms, and improve or maintain health.
The terms "targeted area" or "targeted areas", as used herein, are defined to include a systemic bloodstream of a human body, areas of a human body which can be reached by a systemic bloodstream including, but not limited to muscles, brain, liver, kidneys, etc., and body tissue regions proximate a location of an administered drug.
In DDDSs, a drug(s) is usually contained in a formulation, such as a hydro-alcohol gel, and may include a rate limiting membrane between the formulation and skin for minimizing the variation in the permeation of the drug. When a DDDS is applied to skin, the drug begins to transport out of the formulation, and transport across the rate limiting membrane (if present). The drug then enters the skin, enters blood vessels and tissues under the skin, and is taken into the systemic circulation of the body by the blood. At least some DDDSs have certain amount of pharmaceutically active compound in or on the skin side of the rate limiting membrane (if present) prior to use. In those DDDSs, that portion of the drug on the skin side of the rate limiting membrane will enter the skin without passing through the rate limiting membrane. For many drugs, a significant portion of the dermally absorbed drug is stored in the skin and/or tissues under the skin (hereinafter referred as "depot sites") before being gradually taken into the systemic circulation (hereinafter referred as "depot effect"). This depot effect is believed to be at least partially responsible for the delayed appearance of the drug in the systemic circulation after the application of some DDDSs and for continued delivery of the drug into the systemic circulation after the removal of some DDDSs from the skin.
After placing a DDDS on the skin, the drug concentration in the blood typically remains at or near zero for a period of time, before starting to gradually increase and reach a concentration deemed to be medicinally beneficial, called the "therapeutic level" (the time it takes to reach the therapeutic level is referred to hereinafter as the "onset time"). Ideally, the concentration of the drug in the bloodstream should plateau (i.e., reach a substantially steady state) at a level slightly higher than the therapeutic level and should remain there for extended period of time. For a given person and a given DDDS, the "concentration of the drug in the bloodstream vs. time" relationship usually cannot be altered under normal application conditions.
The onset time and the delivery rate of the drug into the targeted area(s) of the body for a typical DDDS are usually determined by several factors, including: the rate of release of the drug from the formulation, the permeability of the drug across the rate limiting membrane (if a rate limiting membrane is utilized), the permeability of the drug across the skin (especially the stratum corneum layer), drug storage in and release from the depot sites, the permeability of the walls of the blood vessels, and the circulation of blood and other body fluid in the tissues (including the skin) under and around the DDDS. Although these primary factors affecting onset time and delivery rate are known, no existing DDDS is designed to have alterable delivery rate in the course of the application of the drug.
While a DDDS works well in many aspects, current dermal drug delivery technology has some serious limitations, including: 1) the onset time being undesirably long for many DDDSs; 2) the rate that the drug is taken into the systemic circulation or the targeted area(s) of the body cannot be easily varied once the DDDS is applied onto the skin and, when the steady state delivery rate is achieved, it cannot be easily changed; and 3) the skin permeability being so low that many drugs are excluded from dermal delivery because the amount of drug delivered is not high enough to reach a therapeutic level. In addition, temperature variations in the skin and the DDDS are believed contribute to the variation of dermnal absorption of drugs.
It is known that elevated temperature can increase the absorption of drugs through the skin. U.S. Pat. No. 4,898,592, issued Feb. 6, 1990 to Latzke et al., relates to a device for the application of heated transdermally absorbable active substances which includes a carrier impregnated with a transdermally absorbable active substance and a support. The support is a laminate made up of one or more polymeric layers and optionally includes a heat conductive element. This heat conductive element is used for distribution of the patient's body heat such that absorption of the active substance is enhanced. U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,105, issued Oct. 28, 1980 to Harwood, discloses a bandage with a drug and a heat-generating substance, preferably intermixed, to enhance the rate of absorption of the drug by a user's skin. Separate drug and heat-generating substance layers are also disclosed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,911, issued Aug. 11, 1987 to Konno et al., discloses a skin patch including a drug component, and an optional heating element for melting the drug-containing formulation if body temperature is inadequate to do so.
Another area of administration involves delivering drugs in controlled/extended release form/formulations ("form/formulation") into the skin or tissues under the skin (the residing place for these form/formulations are hereinafter referred as "storage sites") which results in the drugs being released from the storage sites in a controlled/extended fashion. The most common technique to deliver the form/formulations into the storage sites is by injection. Other techniques may also be used, such as implantation and forcing the form/formulation into the skin with high-speed hitting. However, once the form/formulation is delivered into the storage sites, it is usually difficult to alter the rate, known as the "release rate", that the drug is released from the form/formulation at the storage sites, and taken into the systemic circulation or the targeted area(s) of the body.
Yet another area of administration involves injecting drugs subcutaneously or intramuscularly. In some clinical situations, it is beneficial to accelerate the speed of drug absorption into the systemic circulation or other targeted areas(s) in the body after such injection.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to develop methods and apparatus to improve the drug administration of DDDSs, and, more specifically, to make the use of DDDSs more flexible, controllable, and titratable (varying the drug delivery rate, amount, or period according to the biological effect of the drug) to better accommodate various clinical needs. It would also be advantageous to develop methods and apparatus to make dermal delivery possible for drugs which are currently excluded because of low skin permeability. It would further be advantageous to develop means to alter mainly to increase the drug absorption rate from the storage sites or injection sites in such ways that can accommodate certain clinical needs.